


Burn the Others Down

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Moon Fever [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles doesn’t dream of Derek. It’s not as if he doesn’t try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn the Others Down

**BURN THE OTHERS DOWN**  
TEEN WOLF  
Derek/Stiles; Lydia/Jackson; Jackson/Stiles; Isaac/Stiles  
 **WARNINGS** : ghost!AU; (so obviously) main character death  
 **NOTES** : Moon Fever Series

First: [You With Air](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/26839.html)  
Second: [Nothing But Heart](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27050.html)  
Third: [As We Walk Into the Night](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27153.html)  
Fourth: [With the Heart of a Child](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27466.html)  
Fifth: [When it was Dark I Called and You Came](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/27884.html)  
Sixth: [We're Sitting on a Ruin](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/28229.html)

Stiles doesn’t dream of Derek. 

It’s not as if he doesn’t try. 

***

Stiles offers Allison the couch and, later, the basement when he realizes that Derek had forgotten about buying shades for the downstairs windows and that, in the sunlight, the couch alights like it’s on fire. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he brings the blankets from Derek’s bed down the stairs, Allison sitting in the darkened basement demurely on a bucket of unopened paint, her legs crossed at the ankles. He sets the blankets down and punches one of Derek’s pillows until it doesn’t hold the shape of Derek’s head any longer. 

Allison smiles and tells him that it’s alright, it’s fine, and that, really, she can find a hotel if this is at all inconvenient and Stiles doesn’t tell her that she’s the only thing keeping him from gathering Derek’s sheets to his face and pretending to cry tears that don’t actually exist anymore, doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t know what he would do if he were left alone in this house like before, except with the touch and taste and smell of Derek on his ghostly skin, doesn’t tell her that he might think about going back to Peter’s house because apparently he’s stupider than he looks. 

“It’s no trouble at all,” he says, instead. 

And Allison looks at him sadly, her mouth a smear of red on her pale face. 

***

Stiles makes coffee as soon as the sun sets, and he hears Allison’s shoes tapping up the stairs slowly, and he knows that she’s doing it deliberately, that she’s probably as supernaturally quiet as Derek is most of the time, and all at once he feels grateful that she’s here. He pours a cup for himself and he holds it until his fingers actually start to feel more than just solid, start to feel actually alive, and then he pours a cup for Allison, holding it out to her as she opens the door, her hair a wrinkled mess, her cheek creased from Derek’s pillow. 

Allison says thank you, holding the cup as close as Stiles does, but she doesn’t drink it, either. 

“Oh,” Stiles says, and then feels stupid. “I should have known that you probably don’t actually eat or drink anything.” 

“It’s okay,” Allison says, and she smiles, and Stiles wonders where she’s been all of these years, who she’s been with, what she’s seen, and he wants to ask her, but he doesn’t. “I like the familiarity of it, sometimes.”

Stiles smiles, but it’s not happy, and the heat from his cup is slowly evaporating like the steam that curls up and up and up. “Me, too,” he says, quietly. 

***

It’s not so much that Stiles dreams, but when he does, in that place where he goes where it’s not so much a dream as an imagination, he doesn’t dream of Derek.

It’s not so much that Stiles dreams, but when he does, he dreams of Peter. 

***

Allison is lively at night, sitting at Derek’s duct taped kitchen table with Stiles and two untouched cups of coffee, talking about the places she’s visited over the years, the desert first, when she was still human, and then darker places once she was turned, jungles and frozen tundra’s and cities that light up at night, big and brilliant and full of people. She talks with her hands, in this luminous, expressive way, and Stiles sits there and devours her and forgets about everything. 

She doesn’t ask about Derek and he doesn’t ask her about the blood thing and if, and when, she needs it, especially when she gets up one night and tells him that she’s going for a walk, her eyes dull and tired and her skin as brittle as glass. When she comes back, the sun is just peeking over the horizon, and she’s radiating and her fingernails are dirty and her mouth is unnaturally red and Stiles can’t look her in the eyes at all, keeps talking about the full moon in a few days, his back to her as he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs the dirty coffee cups clean in the sink, and he keeps talking about the full moon that will change over a dozen werewolves a few miles from here, and keeps talking about how Allison better stay in that night if she knew what was good for her, and Allison nods once and slowly makes her way down into the basement, shutting the door behind her. 

***

It’s not so much that Stiles dreams, but in the place where he goes when he imagines, Stiles is still human.

It’s not so much that Stiles dreams, but in the place where he goes when he imagines, it’s Peter, not Derek, that offers Stiles the bite. 

Stiles accepts and feels the pain of teeth on his skin and then a rush of blood that runs through him like fire, and then power like electrical currents running through him, and then more power, his fingers turning into claws and his skin turning into fur and his teeth turning into fangs, and he feels alive and he feels right, and Peter smiles and laughs and leans down to press his mouth to the back of Stiles’ neck and Stiles moves into him and Peter’s mouth turns sharp and then he’s biting him again, harder, deeper, and Stiles feels the blood pouring out of him, feels it hot and pumping from his neck, and he says something but he doesn’t know what it is because everything sounds like he’s hearing it from under water, and Peter drops him to the floor and Stiles falls and tumbles and then stills, lying flat on his back, his vision becoming more and more hollow, and he hears Peter say something that doesn’t sound like real words above him, that under water sound again, the rushing and pouring of waves, the muted sound of Peter’s mouth, and then he feels cold and colder and even colder still, and then he can’t see anything, and then he can’t feel anything, and then he doesn’t seem solid anymore, and then he doesn’t even feel alive. 

He calls out Derek’s name, but there’s no answer.

And then Stiles wakes up. 

***

A few nights after the full moon, Jackson brings Lydia and a broken, bloodied Isaac to Stiles’ house. 

He rings the doorbell fourteen times before Allison gives Stiles a look like she’s not sure if she should open it or what, her eyebrows raised and her mouth poised in a crooked, questioning line, and Stiles sighs and pulls open the door and Jackson has his arm around Isaac, and Stiles can’t see anything except for Isaac’s clawed, bleeding mouth, and they both fall inside. 

“What,” Stiles says, and Lydia walks past him, her clothes red where it’s not supposed to be red. 

“Do you have any antiseptic,” she asks, and her eyes scan over Allison, but Stiles can tell by the way she relaxes, her hands flat against the sides of her tight skirt, that she doesn’t consider her a threat. 

“What,” Stiles says again, and Jackson lays Isaac down on Derek’s couch, his blood smearing over the material, his back arching into the pain. Isaac’s hand is spread thin over his hip, and it’s then that Stiles can see something beyond his fingertips, something that looks white and a lot like bone. 

If Stiles was still alive, he’s pretty sure he would have vomited by now. 

“I think I saw some in Derek’s bathroom,” Allison says, and vanishes quietly up the stairs, her shoes not even making a sound. 

Stiles doesn’t say anything, but when he turns back to Jackson, Jackson’s cold eyes are trained on him, more feral than human, more blue than Stiles has ever seen them. Stiles grabs a tee shirt from the banister, something he hasn’t touched since Derek had picked up and left, something that still smells like him, even though Stiles must have pressed his nose to it a thousand times. He pushes the shirt to Isaac’s hip and Isaac makes a loud, hurt noise, and then Jackson presses his hands over Stiles’ ghostly hands, and Stiles feels a shot of warmth travel up his arm. 

“Who the fuck is she?” Jackson asks, and his voice is low and dangerous and right near Stiles’ ear, and Stiles shivers, but it’s not because he’s cold. 

“My friend,” he says, and it’s sadder than he meant it to sound, but Jackson turns back to Isaac and doesn’t say anything else. 

And then Allison is back with a bottle of something sterile smelling, and Lydia takes it and pulls her shirt over her head, bunching it up in her hand and upending the bottle into the cotton. 

“Why isn’t he healing?” Stiles asks, and he pretends like Lydia isn’t topless in his living room, like there’s not three werewolves and a vampire using the space that Derek had used only months before, using that space that Stiles had always used, and Lydia presses the soaking shirt into Isaac’s wound, and Isaac screams louder than Stiles has ever heard anyone scream. 

Eventually, Isaac passes out, and once Lydia has made sure that the wound is perfectly able to start healing now, the skin slowly, slowly patching itself, fitting broken parts back together like puzzle pieces, she turns to Stiles. She’s unashamed by her nakedness, just as she was unashamed at Peter’s house, and Jackson is breathing heavily somewhere near Stiles’ shoulder, his fingers still touching Isaac. Lydia smiles briefly, something tight and unhappy, something bitter. 

“Wounds from an Alpha don’t heal as quickly,” she says, as if that even remotely explains anything about any of this, and then smiles and says that she’s going upstairs to find something of Derek’s to put on. 

Allison is standing by the banister, reaching out for Stiles like she’s afraid he might do something stupid or crazy or both, and she looks at Jackson and she looks at Isaac and then she looks back at Stiles, and Stiles can tell that she’s kind of freaked out, so when she says something about finding blankets downstairs in the basement where Stiles knows for a fact there aren’t any blankets, he lets her go. 

Stiles turns back to Jackson and Jackson turns back to Stiles, and Jackson is covered in Isaac’s blood, his clothes and his hands and his face, from where Isaac reached up and left fingerprints on Jackson’s cheek, and Stiles wants to laugh, but this is not even close to being funny. 

Jackson says, “I’m sorry about your couch.”

And when he leans into kiss him, Stiles doesn’t pull away. 

***

They fuck against the kitchen counter, just beyond where Isaac would be able to see them If he were awake, Jackson pressing Stiles up and then into the sink, folding Stiles down over the faucet, Stiles pressing his face to the glass of the window, his cheek cold from the pane, but burning hot where Jackson is touching him. He doesn’t say anything and Jackson doesn’t say anything, and Jackson threads his bloody red fingers through Stiles’ ghostly fingers when Jackson slips inside of him, and Stiles mouths the metal of the faucet and forgets who and where he is, and Jackson kisses the back of Stiles’ neck and pushes against him once, sliding in and then out and then in again, pushing faster, pushing harder, and Stiles makes a sound that he’s never heard come out of his mouth before, and Jackson breathes against Stiles’ ghostly skin, and it’s another long second before Jackson comes, burning like lightning above him. 

Stiles pulls up his pants and buttons the buttons and straightens his shirt and doesn’t look at Jackson, who doesn’t look at him, and when Lydia comes into the kitchen with one of Derek’s old, faded football shirts and takes one look at the two of them, bloody and disheveled and reeking of sex, her mouth open wide, her eyebrows raised to her hairline, she walks right back out again without even saying a word.

Jackson says, “I’m sorry,” but doesn’t tell Stiles what for. 

Stiles says, “It’s okay,” his voice tired and flat, and nobody moves when the door to the kitchen slams shut by itself. 

***

In the place where Stiles goes when he imagines, he doesn’t dream about Derek.

In the place where Stiles goes when he imagines, he only dreams of dying.

***

Isaac wakes up in the early morning, his skin healed so tightly that there’s not even a scar. Allison is down in the basement and Jackson and Lydia are sharing Derek’s bed upstairs, so Stiles is the only one awake when Isaac presses a hand to his hip and hisses slightly, ghostly pain still echoing through him. 

“Hi,” Stiles says, handing Isaac the lukewarm cup of coffee he was holding. “Remember me?”

Isaac takes the cup and sips it slowly, grimacing at the taste or the temperature, Stiles doesn’t know which. He sits up and Stiles sits down next to him, and Isaac says, “Of course I remember you,” and his voice is soft. “Jackson talks about you all the time.”

Stiles chokes, and then coughs, loudly. “Oh,” he says. He can still feel Jackson’s hands on his hips from the night before, can still feel the heat that seared through him, can still taste the flavor of Jackson’s mouth. 

“Don’t worry,” Isaac says, and he folds his bloody hands in his lap, his mouth poised and perfect and nothing like what it was last night. “He’s not in love with you or anything.” 

“That’s,” Stiles says, and then his voice falters. “Good, I guess.” 

“Actually, I think he’s in love with Lydia,” Isaac says, and he bares his teeth a little, still blunt, and Stiles looks up at him, sharply, and Isaac shrugs and laughs, and it sounds brittle, and inhuman, and jealous. “Derek, on the other hand,” and if Stiles were still alive, his heart might have stopped. 

Stiles doesn’t say anything and Isaac takes Stiles’ ghostly hand in his own, solid, warm, and the contrast of Isaac’s red skin on Stiles’ makes Stiles’ eyes hurt, so he closes them and pretends like everything is okay. He hears a faint pop of a light bulb blowing out in the kitchen.

“It’s weird,” Isaac says, and he brings Stiles’ hand up to his mouth, and he bites at the skin there on the underside of Stiles’ wrist, his soft, human mouth, his blunt, human teeth. “But I’ve never seen Derek like he is when he’s around you.” 

Isaac licks his lips and his tongue touches Stiles’ skin and Stiles feels like a pulse of electricity has gone right through him. He doesn’t say stop, he doesn’t say no, and maybe that’s only because this isn’t like last night with Jackson, this isn’t something that Isaac will apologize for later, and maybe Stiles needs that more than he knows. The table shakes slightly next to him, and Stiles opens his eyes, and Isaac is right next to him, his breath warm near Stiles’ cheek. Another light in the kitchen pops.

“You don’t know how Peter is,” Isaac says, and his voice is low, whiskey-rough, and Stiles shivers. “You don’t know what he’s done to us, what he’s done to Derek.” 

Isaac presses his mouth to Stiles’ mouth and Stiles sinks slowly into him, and Isaac pulls back, but only to say, “You’ll never know,” the sound of his words loud in the empty room. 

Stiles presses back into him and doesn’t say anything when the faucet in the kitchen turns on by itself, full blast. 

***

Stiles wakes up in the pile of blankets that Jackson had laid out for Isaac on the couch. The sun is streaming through the window that’s facing him, and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust, his arm reaching up and out of Isaac’s embrace to shield the blinding light. Isaac makes a sound that’s somewhere between a huff and a pant, and it sounds more wolf like than human, and Stiles smiles and bumps his nose on the side of Isaac’s face, gently, and Isaac turns away from him in his sleep. 

Stiles turns back into the sun and breathes out, slowly, and says, “Fucking curtains.” 

“Sorry about that,” a voice says, and Stiles almost jumps when he turns towards the figure in the kitchen, tall and dark and distinctively Derek. 

“Fuck,” Stiles says.

And somewhere behind him, the window pane shatters into a thousand pieces.


End file.
